In sprints 220-228, Icecat delivered a series of significant enhancements across multiple areas of our platform, including AI-powered text translation and alternative text generation, customer-specific content distribution, regulatory and compliance updates, functional improvements in Icecat Brand Cloud, security and access enhancements, and other supporting developments. These updates aim to streamline partner workflows, improve data accessibility and compliance, and strengthen overall platform security and performance. For additional details, please refer to the previous Icecat Release Notes.
Brand Cloud AI Text Translation and Alternative Text Generation
Over the past several sprints, we have introduced significant enhancements to Icecat Brand Cloud, enabling brands and editors to leverage AI for text translation and alternative text generation across multiple content assets. These features simplify multilingual product content creation, standardization, and customization for customer-specific taxonomies.
In sprint 224, we delivered a foundational capability: configurable AI rules for translation and alternative text generation. Icecat administrators can now define how AI models behave when processing various types of content.
The new rule management interface allows admins to configure prompts and parameters for AI actions, ensuring outputs align with specific brand or customer requirements.
Admins can customize rules using a flexible set of parameters:
Action: Text translation or alternative text generation
Asset: Target content type (model description, description block, etc.)
Taxonomy: Icecat default or customer-specific taxonomy
Model version
Temperature: Degree of creativity in AI output
System prompt (“Role / Tone of voice”)
Rule name (or “Tone of voice name”)
User prompt
This structure allows for precise control enabling tone variations, customer-specific rules, and asset-specific handling.
Before activation, admins can test and adjust rules directly in the rule creation interface, ensuring output quality and alignment with requirements. A rule management dashboard with filtering and review capabilities simplifies rules maintenance.
After laying the groundwork with configurable rules, subsequent sprints focused on integrating AI Assistant functionality to product assets:
Product Model Description (Sprint 224) Brand users and Icecat editors gained the ability to standardize product model descriptions via AI translation, select a target language during asset creation, and invoke AI Assistant for translation, review the generated draft, edit if necessary, and apply the result directly to the asset field.
Description Blocks: Icecat & Customer-Specific (Sprint 225) AI translation was integrated to Icecat Description Block which helps to standardize text across locales when source text exists in at least one language, and to Taxonomy-Specific Description Block to generate alternative text from Icecat default taxonomy content.
Localized Text Specifications (Sprint 226) AI Assistant became available for localized text specifications, enabling standardized translations for spec values across multiple locales with the same user flow as previous assets.
Reasons to Buy (Sprint 227) The final phase of rollout brought AI translation capabilities to Reasons to Buy content, completing the integration of AI Assistant across all major multilingual assets.
These features provide measurable value to brand partners and Icecat editors by enabling faster multilingual content creation through reduced manual translation time, ensuring a consistent brand voice with defined tone and prompts per asset and customer requirements, and simplifying management with centralized rule configuration and AI output testing.
Customer-Specific Content Distribution
Over the course of several sprints, we have significantly evolved the way customer-specific content is created, distributed, and managed in Icecat. This ensures personalized experiences for channel partners while maintaining consistency with default brand content and existing distribution flows.
Initial Rollout and Public Visibility Enhancements
Core Distribution Logic
In sprint 220, we introduced customer-specific Product Stories export for users assigned to the taxonomy under which this content is created. This marked the first step toward taxonomy-driven personalization in Icecat.
Key Features:
Backup language support: Follows Icecat’s general rules – if content in the requested language is missing, backup language content is provided.
Multi-taxonomy handling: For users assigned to multiple taxonomies, the system delivers content from available taxonomy with the highest priority; if unavailable, default brand content is delivered.
Seamless integration: No changes required for channel partner integrations. Customer-specific content is distributed via the same tags (in XML), sections (in JSON, and Live HTML), cells (in CSV, and PCF) as default content.
Content identification: XML and JSON include a special tag/parameter to indicate whether content is taxonomy-specific (customer-specific) or default (Icecat). This identification is not yet available in CSV, PCF, or Live HTML.
Display on Icecat.biz
In sprint 221, Customer-specific content (Descriptions, Bullet Points, Product Stories) is now visible on Icecat.biz product pages for logged-in partners assigned to the relevant taxonomy. This ensures alignment between what partners see on Icecat.biz and what they receive in export files.
Public Product Story Visibility and Open Icecat Distribution
Two major updates resolved inconsistencies and expanded access to public Product Stories were delivered:
Open Icecat distribution update (Sprint 222): Version 2.0 customer-specific Product Stories can now be distributed to Open Icecat channel partners for products belonging to non-Sponsor brands.
Versioning conflict resolution (Sprint 228): Open Icecat channel partners and brands highlighted a visibility gap. JSON granular calls showed only Product Stories version 1.0 (not public), while Live HTML displayed version 2.0, which is Publicly accessible. As a result, Open Icecat partners using JSON did not receive accurate information about publicly accessible Product Stories in Live HTML. To fix this: Product Stories 1.0 are now ready to accept the parameter responsible for public accessibility via the Multimedia API; JSON and Live HTML logic is synchronized to ensure consistency in content visibility across channels.
Reporting and Tracking Enhancements
We introduced improvements to metrics calculation, reporting clarity, and historical transparency for customer-specific Product Stories. These updates ensure accurate insights for both partners and the Icecat team:
Data Health Score Improvements (Sprint 222) Customer-specific Product Stories are now handled separately from general Product Stories in Data Health calculations, allowing for clearer performance metrics and targeted quality assessments. Additionally, we added capability to include customer-specific Product Stories as a dedicated parameter in the Data Health Score.
Coverage and Reporting Accuracy (Sprint 222) Customer-specific Product Stories were excluded from the Coverage from file report to provide an accurate view of partner feed coverage. This prevents misinterpretation of coverage for partners not assigned to any taxonomy.
Product History Transparency (Sprint 223) We updated product history in Icecat Brand Cloud. The Product History interface now shows whether a Product Story is linked to a customer-specific taxonomy or an Icecat taxonomy. This enhances traceability for editors and partners reviewing historical changes.
Regulatory and Compliance Updates
During recent sprints, we delivered several updates aimed at ensuring Icecat content and platforms comply with new regulations and improve data accessibility for brand and channel partners. These enhancements address contact details for GPSR, EAA accessibility requirements, and EPR packaging data export.
GPSR: Contact Details Management
We enhanced how brand and manufacturer contact details are stored and displayed to support General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) requirements.
Categories Scope for Brand Owners (Sprint 220) We introduced the ability to define category scope for brand owners. This enables the Contact Details Manager to specify for which product categories a brand owner acts as the manufacturer, ensuring more accurate data attachment to the product based on the product category.
Display of Contact Details on Icecat.biz (Sprint 221) We added a new “Contact Details” tab on the Icecat.biz product page, showing all manufacturer contact details available in our system. It helps brand partners validate whether stored information is accurate and needs updates, and allows channel partners to see what additional data can be retrieved from Icecat to meet GPSR requirements. Note: email addresses are hidden for users who are not logged in.
EAA Compliance: Accessibility Improvements
We conducted a comprehensive audit to ensure our services align with the European Accessibility Act (EAA). Multiple enhancements were rolled out across sprints to improve accessibility for all users.
Contrast Fixes Across Platforms (Sprint 221) We reviewed and fixed contrast levels on Icecat Live HTML, Icecat.biz, and Icecat Brand Cloud interfaces to meet WCAG AA standards.
Live HTML Alt Text and Readability Enhancement (Sprint 225) We improved accessibility of Icecat Live HTML integrations by adding alt text to feature logos, describing each logo’s meaning, and enhancing readability of boolean specification icons (e.g., “Yes”/green tick and “No”/red cross) by adding descriptive text behind the icons for screen readers.
Icecat.biz Alt Text and Readability Enhancement (Sprint 228) We conducted a technical review of Icecat.biz and added missing alt texts for flags, Icecat logo, brand logo, product gallery, and social media icons
Icecat Brand Cloud Status Message Behavior Improvements (Sprint 226) We updated Brand Cloud status messages for better usability. Success messages appear after a successful action and disappear automatically after5 seconds. Info messages provide guidance for additional actions and remain on screen until manually closed. Error messages behave like info messages, allowing users to review details and decide on corrective actions.
EPR and Packaging Information Export
We are enhancing the way Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging information is shared with channel partners.
Packaging details are currently provided through relations functionality. Brands create a dedicated packaging product under a packaging category. This packaging product is then attached to the master product. In the future, as packaging taxonomy matures, we plan to develop a dedicated packaging management functionality.
Packaging Availability in Daily Index Files
In sprint 228, we updated the logic for publishing products in daily index files. When a relation between a packaging product and a master product is created or updated, it now triggers both products to be included in the daily index files. This ensures partners are promptly informed about packaging product additions or updates.
Icecat Brand Cloud Functionalities Enhancements
Over the past several sprints, we have delivered multiple updates to Icecat Brand Cloud aimed at improving usability, transparency, and data management efficiency for brand users, editors, and channel partners. Below is an overview of the main enhancements, grouped by functionality.
Reporting Engine
We introduced a series of improvements to make report management more intuitive, flexible, and secure:
Persisting Report Settings (Sprint 220) Users no longer need to reconfigure report parameters each time they schedule or email a report. After using “Report by email” or “Schedule report,” the settings remain saved, allowing faster edits for subsequent runs.
Error Notifications for Large Reports (Sprint 221) If a report cannot be generated due to excessive data scope, users now receive an email notification advising them to split the request into smaller parts.
Reassigning Report Authors (Sprint 221) Scheduled reports can now be reassigned to another user, enabling smooth responsibility transitions (e.g., when a manager leaves or changes role).
Sensitive Data Protection (Sprint 226) We introduced a “Remove sensitive information” setting to prevent accidental sharing of sensitive data in Datasheet download reports. If recipients include external partners, the setting is automatically enabled. Additionally, the “Send report to” field was optimized for managing large recipient lists.
Vertical Sub-Total in Downloads (Sprint 227) Account managers can now group channel partner downloads by Vertical in report sub-totals, providing better segmentation and insight.
Export Tool
Automated Column Matching (Sprint 220) The Export Tool now auto-detects key columns “Brand,” “Product code,” “GTIN,” “Icecat product ID” when processing feeds. This reduces manual matching work for the editorial team and speeds up feed imports.
Coverage From File
Enhancements to the Coverage from File tool improve clarity and reduce manual effort:
Default Collapsed Reports (Sprint 220) Coverage reports are now collapsed by default to minimize visual noise. Users can expand them only when needed.
Simplified Email Delivery (Sprint 220) Instead of typing their email manually, users can simply tick a checkbox to receive the report at their registered email address.
Search Functionality
We introduced several improvements to help brand users and editors find relevant products faster and filter results effectively:
Batch GTIN Search for Editors (Sprint 221) Editors can now search for multiple products at once by entering GTIN identifiers in bulk, improving efficiency when handling large product sets.
“Show My Locales Only” Filter (Sprint 225) A new search filter enables brand users to restrict search results to products active in the locales they manage. This leverages the Preferred Repositories configuration in the user profile to determine relevant locales.
Active Asset Filtering (Sprint 223) Filters for multimedia objects and images now exclude deactivated assets. This ensures that when searching for products with specific media, only active and usable assets appear in the results.
Product Management
Updates in product creation, image handling, and text editing were designed to simplify daily operations and reduce repetitive manual tasks:
Product Creation and Validation
Duplicate Product Detection (Sprint 225) When creating a product, the system checks for an existing Brand + Product Code combination. If a duplicate exists, users are prompted to either navigate to the existing product or adjust identifiers before proceeding.
Image Handling
Batch Drag-and-Drop for Images (Sprint 220) Users can now select and reorder multiple product images simultaneously via drag-and-drop, instead of arranging them one by one.
Description Block Editing
Paragraph Removal Tool (Sprint 225) A new icon allows users to remove paragraph formatting from the entire description text or selected parts. That is useful for cleaning up content copied from PDFs where each line is treated as a separate paragraph.
Undo Functionality (Sprint 226) Added an Undo button and Ctrl+Z support to reverse the last text change made in the Description field, minimizing errors during editing.
Editor Journal
Email Reporting for Editor Activity (Sprint 221) Users can now request Editor Journal reports by email, receiving the same data visible in the UI. This simplifies auditing and tracking editorial work across multiple editors.
Security and Access Enhancements
Over the past sprints, we focused on strengthening platform security, making two-factor authentication (2FA) more accessible, and modernizing how partners retrieve sensitive files. These improvements address vulnerabilities, enhance user protection, and align with best practices for secure data management.
Icecat Brand Cloud Security Improvements
We continuously address vulnerabilities reported in penetration tests and identified by our internal security team. In sprint 223-225, we resolved seven issues from the latest penetration test report and implemented two additional security improvements discovered during internal reviews.
Additionally, earlier in sprint 221, we introduced brand access restrictions: users not assigned to any brand can no longer access Icecat Brand Cloud. Instead, they now see a UI message instructing them to obtain brand authorization before gaining access.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Improving account security for brand and channel partners was another priority. In sprint 224, we updated the 2FA setup process in user profile settings by adding an alphanumeric key alongside the QR code. This allows users to configure authenticator apps more flexibly and generate secure six‑digit login codes.
In sprint 225, our goal was to improve the security of the Icecat Brand Cloud database by informing users about the option to enable 2FA. From now on, when a user logs in and their account is not protected by 2FA, they will see a message encouraging them to secure their profile and product data by enabling 2FA in their profile settings. This adds an extra layer of protection in case the user’s login and password are compromised.
Secure Retrieval of PIF and PCF Files
To protect sensitive partner data, we provided an alternative to the legacy method for retrieving Personal Index Files (PIF) and Personal Catalog Files (PCF), which relied on passing login and password in the query string. In sprint 225, we introduced a secure API token–based method for file retrieval. This approach is compatible with accounts that use 2FA and ensures a more secure integration for channel partners.
Other Developments in Sprint 220-228
In addition to major feature rollouts, several enhancements and infrastructure updates were delivered to improve user experience, platform stability, and data accessibility across Icecat services. These developments focused on partner communication, Catalog Object Cloud improvements, and technical maintenance.
Partner Communication and Registration
Improving the onboarding experience for new channel partners was an important step in promoting broader adoption of Icecat tools. In sprint 221, we updated registration emails to include information about the Icecat PIM Free Trial, allowing partners to explore our Product Information Management capabilities immediately after registration. This proactive communication helps partners understand the value of Icecat’s ecosystem earlier in their journey.
Catalog Object Cloud Enhancements
We continued to invest in making Catalog Object Cloud more informative and accessible to end users:
In sprint 224, we added Catalog Object Cloud QR codes to Icecat-generated PDFs, placed directly after the barcodes section. This addition makes it easier for end customers to access product information online when reviewing Sponsor Brand PDFs.
By sprint 228, we extended Catalog Object Cloud pages to display the entire product information available in our system. As a result, when users scan Icecat QR codes, they are now directed to comprehensive product details, enhancing transparency and product understanding.
Maintenance and Technical Improvements
In sprint 221, several backend and infrastructure improvements were completed to maintain security, performance, and reliability:
Updating Terms of Service to align with current platform policies.
Finalizing the configuration of new Fortigates to enhance network security.
Disabling the legacy YII1 project, reducing maintenance overhead.
Updating ClickHouse to improve reporting performance and stability.
Making system logs more compact, optimizing storage and log processing efficiency.
All these developments enhance the efficiency, security, and usability of the Icecat ecosystem. Brand and channel partners benefit from faster content management workflows, greater control over AI-driven translations, improved compliance tools, and more transparent product information access via Catalog Object Cloud. Technical upgrades and security improvements ensure the platform remains robust, scalable, and aligned with evolving regulatory and market requirements, enabling partners to deliver richer product experiences to their customers with confidence.